dance of the holy ghosts: a play on memory

October 09–November 17

dance of the holy ghosts: a play on memory
By Marcus Gardley
Directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah

Oscar Clifton is a Blues man living through his memories of the past, until his estranged grandson Marcus pays a visit. Together, they confront a history of loves, regrets, and missed opportunities. This acclaimed play by Marcus Gardley is a poetic family drama set in the key of Blues—a memory-scape skipping seamlessly across the decades.

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Cast

Sheldon Best
Marcus

Denise Burse*
Viola

Michael Genet*
Oscar

Doug Eskew*
Willie/Father Michael/Bluesy/Tux

Jasmine Carmichael*
Tanisha

Chandra Thomas*
Darlene

Baltimore Center Stage: dance of the holy ghosts. Off Broadway & Other NYC credits—Classical Theatre of Harlem: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Puck); 59E59 & Penguin Rep: Freed (John Newton Templeton); LAByrinth: Paradox of the Urban Cliché; Ma-Yi & Vampire Cowboys: Soul Samurai; Vampire Cowboys: Geek! and Alice in Slasherland; 59E59 & Scripts Up: Years of Sky. Regional—Studio Theatre of DC: Sucker Punch (Leon); Denver Center: Superior Donuts (Franco); Geva Theatre: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Lysander); NC Shakespeare Festival: Romeo and Juliet (Romeo); Cleveland Play House: The Life of Galileo (Andrea Sarti); Underground Railway: Harriet Jacobs (Tom); Actors’ Shakespeare Project: Much Ado About Nothing (Claudio); SpeakEasy Stage: The History Boys; Berkshire Theatre: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. TV—CBS: Person of Interest. Education—BA: Brandeis University.

Baltimore Center Stage: dance of the holy ghosts , Fences, Radio Golf . Broadway/Lincoln Center—Wendy Wasserstein’s An American Daughter (dir. Daniel Sullivan). Off Broadway—Ohio Theatre: Eisa Davis’ Angela’s Mixtape; Classical Stage Company: Don Juan of Seville; American Place Theatre: Ground People (Theatre World Award, Audelco Nom.); Cherry Lane Theatre: Harriet’s Return; Negro Ensemble Company: Hannah Davis; New Federal Theatre: Bill Harris’ Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil (Audelco/Best Actress Award). Tours—Radio Golf (Pre-Broadway, Center Stage, Mark Taper Forum, Seattle Rep). Regional—The Kennedy Center: Pearl Cleage’s Flyin’ West w/ Ruby Dee; Cincinnati Playhouse, Geva: Charles Randolph Wright’s Blue; Illusion Theater: Miss Evers’ Boys; Cleveland Playhouse: African Company Presents Richard III; Seattle Rep: The Piano Lesson (dir. Lloyd Richards); True Colors Theatre Company/NBAF: Fences (dir. Kenny Leon), James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner; Alliance Theatre: The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars (dir. Kenny Leon). Workshop—New York Stage and Film/Powerhouse: Marcus Gardley’s The House That Will Not Stand (dir. Marion McClinton). Film/TV—Claretha Jenkins on Tyler Perry’s House of Payne (2011 NAACP Award recipient for Outstanding Comedy Series), Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding (dir. Bruce Beresford), Preaching to the Choir, Funny Valentines (BET/STARZ), All the Law and Orders, Third Watch, 100 Centre Street.

Baltimore Center Stage: dance of the holy ghosts. Broadway—A Few Good Men, Hamlet, Northeast Local, Lestat; Off Broadway—A Soldier’s Play, The Colored Museum, Resurrection, Earth And Sky, Seven Guitars, The Oedipus Plays, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Film/TV—One Fine Day, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, She Hate Me, Booty Call, 25th Hour, Simple Justice, Hallelujah, Deadline, Ugly Betty, Law & Order, Tyler Perry’s House of Payne, All My Children, As the World Turns, Law & Order: CSI, New York Undercover, One Life To Live. Writing Credits—Hallelujah (American Playhouse), She Hate Me (Sony Pictures Classics/Spike Lee), Talk To Me (FOCUS Features), The Cape Island Affair (in pre-production at ATO Pictures), and his new book, They Must Not Know Who I Think I Am: Lesson’s In Defiant Resilience™. Awards—Sundance Screenwriter Selectee, Eugene O’Neill Playwright’s Conference Selectee, The Kennedy Center Award for New American Plays (Pork Pie), NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture (Talk To Me).

Baltimore Center Stage: dance of the holy ghosts , Ain’t Misbehavin. Broadway—The Color Purple (Rev. Avery), Five Guys Named Moe (Big Moe), Truly Blessed. Off Broadway—Thunder Knocking on the Door, Josephine Song. National Tours—The Color Purple, Five Guys Named Moe (NAACP nomination and LA Ovation Award), CATS, Dreamgirls, Ain’t Misbehavin’. Regional Theater—Caroline or Change (Salt Award nom), Chasin Dem’ Blues, Crowns (Barrymore Award nom), Dreamgirls, Thunder Knocking on the Door (Helen Hayes nom), Ain’t Misbehavin (Helen Hayes nom), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Polk County and Golden Boy. TV—One Life To Live, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Late Night with David Letterman, The Tonight Show, Good Morning America,The Tony Awards Show (1992 & 2005).

Baltimore Center Stage: dance of the holy ghosts. Off Broadway/New York— New York Theatre Workshop: Coney Island Avenue; Classical Theatre of Harlem: The Cherry Orchard (AUDELCO nom); Public Theater: 365 Days/365 Plays; Women’s Project Theatre: Boy Meets Girl; Cherry Lane Theatre: Wordsworth; P.S. 122: Picking Up Baby; Access Theatre: Obama Drama; Barrow Group Theatre: a rhyme for the UNDERground. Regional— Guthrie: Crowns; Pittsburgh Public Theater: Clybourne Park; Delaware Theatre Company: No Child… (Barrymore Award nom); Philadelphia Theatre Company: Ruined; Alliance Theatre: False Creeds. Film/TV—Labor Day, The Good Wife, Too Big to Fail, Law & Order: CI, Sweet Lorraine. Writer/producer—Standing At… (Heideman Award Finalist), a rhyme for the UNDERground, Complete Sentences?, Forgive to Forget; Co-Founder, viBe Theater Experience (award-winning non-profit organization empowering NYC teenage girls through the performing arts). Education—MFA, Columbia University. www.chandrathomas.com / @truechandra.

Creative Team

Kwame Kwei-Armah OBE
Director

Laura Smith*
Stage Manager

Neil Patel
Scenic Designer

David Burdick
Costume Designer

Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen
Sound Design & Music

Michelle Habeck
Lighting Designer

Catherine María Rodríguez
Dramaturg

Stephanie Klapper
Casting Director

Daniel Pruksarnukul
Additional Casting

Kwame Kwei-Armah OBE is a playwright, director, actor, and broadcaster. At Baltimore Center Stage he has directed Jazz, Marley, One Night in Miami…, Amadeus, dance of the holy ghosts, The Mountaintop, An Enemy of the People, The Whipping Man, and Things of Dry Hours. Other directorial credits include One Love: The Bob Marley Musical (originally Marley) at Birmingham Repertory Theatre; One Night in Miami… at London’s Donmar Warehouse; Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors, Much Ado About Nothing, and the world premiere of Detroit ’67 at The Public Theater in New York; Naomi Wallace’s The Liquid Plain and Dominique Morisseau’s Skeleton Crew. His works as playwright include One Love: The Bob Marley Musical, Elmina’s Kitchen, Let There Be Love, A Bitter Herb, Statement of Regret, Seize the Day, and Beneatha’s Place, which debuted at Baltimore Center Stage in 2013 as part of The Raisin Cycle. Kwame served as Artistic Director at Baltimore Center Stage from 2011 to 2018, he is now the Artistic Director at the Young Vic in London. He has served on the boards of Theatre Communications Group, Steinberg Playwright Awards, The National Theatre, and The Tricycle Theatre, and as Artistic Director for the World Arts Festival in Senegal. He was named the Chancellor of the University of the Arts London, and was named an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

Baltimore Center Stage: Detroit ’67, As You Like It; 4000 Miles; After the Revolution; It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play; Amadeus; Wild with Happy; Twelfth Night; Stones in His Pockets; dance of the holy ghosts; Clybourne Park; Beneatha’s Place; The Mountaintop; Bus Stop; An Enemy of the People; The Whipping Man; Gleam; The Rivals; Snow Falling on Cedars; Cyrano; Working it Out; Fabulation or, The Re-Education of Undine; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Regional—Shakespeare Theater Company: Salome; Contemporary American Theater Festival: World Builders; Everyman: Pygmalion, Shipwrecked, The Exonerated, Rabbit Hole, Doubt, Gem of the Ocean, And a Nightingale Sang, The School for Scandal, A Number, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, Yellowman; Woolly Mammoth: Gruesome Playground Injuries, House of Gold, The Unmentionables, Vigils, After Ashley; Folger: Measure for Measure, Olney Theatre: Stuff Happens; Theater Alliance: Headsman’s Holiday, Pangea.

Baltimore Center Stage: Marley, dance of the holy ghosts, Animal Crackers, Mud Blue Sky, The Mountaintop, The Whipping Man, American Buffalo, Working it Out, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Once on This Island, Elmina’s Kitchen, Ain’t Misbehavin’, The Hostage, As You Like It, many others. Broadway—Soul Doctor; Oleanna; Wonderland; [title of show]; Ring of Fire; ’night, Mother; Sideman (also West End & Kennedy Center). Off Broadway—Civilians: Pretty Filthy, This Beautiful City; Signature Theatre: stop.reset, My Children! My Africa!; Second Stage: Water by the Spoonful, By the way, Meet Vera Stark, Gruesome Playground Injuries, Peter & Jerry, Living Out; Roundabout: McReele, Hurrah at Last; Vineyard: Now.Here.This., The Long Christmas Ride Home; MTC: The Lion, Between Us, Glimmer Glimmer and Shine; MCC: The Mercy Seat; NYTW: The Beard of Avon, Lydie Breeze, Resident Alien, A Question of Mercy, Bob, Quills, Slavs!; Playwrights Horizons: Mr. Burns a Post Electric Play, Stage Kiss, Lobster Alice, On the Mountain; Public/NYSF: Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3), Dirty Tricks, Othello. Film/TV—Some Velvet Morning, Loitering With Intent, Dil Dhadakne Do, In Treatment (HBO), Billy and Billie (DirecTV). Awards—Obie Award (2), Helen Hayes Award, Eddy Award, Hewes nom (5), Drama Desk nom (3).

Baltimore Center Stage: Lookingglass Alice, Next to Normal; Amadeus; Twelfth Night; dance of the holy ghosts; Animal Crackers; …Edgar Allan Poe; The Mountaintop; An Enemy of the People; The Whipping Man; A Skull in Connemara; The Rivals; Snow Falling on Cedars; Working it Out; Cyrano; Caroline, or Change; Hearts; Things of Dry Hours; Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Elmina’s Kitchen; Picnic; a.m. Sunday; The Rainmaker; Blithe Spirit; and many others. Regional—Everyman Theatre: Sweat, Dancing at Lughnasa, Intimate Apparel, Long Day’s Journey into Night, The Revolutionists, The Book of Joseph, Dot, Los Ostros, An Inspector Calls, Death of a Salesman, A Streetcar Named Desire, Ruined, Ghosts, Blithe Spirit; Walnut Street/Totem Pole: The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Moon Over Buffalo. Opera—Cincinnati: Don Giovanni; Boston Lyric: I Puritani; Tulsa: Tosca, The Barber of Seville, Carmen, Fidelio. Dance—BAM: FLY: Five First Ladies of Dance; Dayton Contemporary Dance: Lyric Fire (world premiere, dir/choreographer Dianne McIntyre). Other—Baltimore Symphony Orchestra: Holiday Spectacular.

Baltimore Center Stage: Gleam, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, These Shining Lives, A Raisin in the Sun, Dinah Was, Jitney. Broadway—Music & Sound: The Miracle Worker, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Speed of Darkness; Music: My Thing of Love; Sound: Superior Donuts, reasons to be pretty, A Year with Frog and Toad, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Hollywood Arms, King Hedley II, Buried Child, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, The Song of Jacob Zulu, The Grapes of Wrath. Off Broadway—Playwrights Horizons; Vineyard; MTC; MCC; Union Square; Second Stage; Public; NYSF; Minetta Lane. International— London: Comedy Theatre, Barbican, National Theatre; Tel Aviv: Cameri Theater; Japan: Subaru Acting Co.; Toronto; Dublin; Galway; Perth; Sydney. Regional—Steppenwolf; Goodman; Alley; Alliance; Chicago Shakespeare; Guthrie; A.C.T. (S. F.); South Coast Rep; Mark Taper; McCarter; Papermill; Huntington; Hartford Stage; Long Wharf; Shakespeare (DC); Kennedy Center.

Baltimore Center Stage: Jazz, Marley, Amadeus, dance of the holy ghosts, An Enemy of the People, The Whipping Man, A Skull in Connemara, Let There Be Love, Things of Dry Hours, Elmina’s Kitchen. Broadway—Thoroughly Modern Millie (Slide Artist); The Boy from Oz, King Hedley, Movin’ Out, Thoroughly Modern Millie, King Hedley II Associated & Assistant Lighting Designer). Off Broadway—Fifty Words, MCC Theatre. Regional—The Guthrie, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, The Goodman, Alliance Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Minneapolis Children’s Theatre, The Zach, Kansas City Repertory, Penumbra, Arizona Theatre Company, Writer’s Theatre, Lookingglass, and others. Opera—Austin Lyric Opera: Elixir of Love, The Masked Ball; Julie Taymor’s Grendel, New York (Associate Lighting Designer). Awards—NEATCG Career Development Grant for Design, The University of Texas Faculty Fine Arts Award. Professional—Michelle heads the lighting design program at the University of Texas at Austin.

Baltimore Center Stage: Marley, One Night in Miami…, Next to Normal, dance of the holy ghosts, Stones in His Pockets, and Wild with Happy. Catherine facilitates Center Stage’s Wright-Right-Now, hosts the Dramaturgy Open Office Hours Project in Baltimore/DC, and is a visiting instructor of dramaturgy in the Department of Drama at Catholic University. In fall 2015, Catherine will sashay away from Baltimore to attend Yale School of Drama. Before she does, she’d like to say to Center Stage & Baltimore: Thanks for being my home, my family; nos vemos hasta pronto. Awards: 2014 Dramaturg Driven Grant, LMDA; 2014 Leadership Institute Fellow, National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures; 2013 Regional Student Dramaturgy Award, LMDA & Kennedy Center; 2013 Dramaturgy Debut Panelist, Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Carnegie Mellon: BFA, Dramaturgy; BA, Hispanic Studies. Laissez les bons temps rouler! Adelante.

Baltimore Center Stage: That Face, The White Snake, The Secret Garden, Herzog Festival (4000 Miles and After the Revolution), It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, Next to Normal, Vanya and Sonia…, Stones in His Pockets, dance of the holy ghosts, …Poe, The Whipping Man, A Skull in Connemara. Selected credits include: Broadway—Bronx Bombers; A Christmas Story, The Musical; Dividing the Estate; Bells Are Ringing; It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues. Off Broadway—Daniel’s Husband; That Golden Girls Show!; Fade; Exit Strategy; The Roads to Home; Informed Consent; The Winter’s Tale; The Glass Menagerie; Billy Porter’s While I Yet Live; The Model Apartment; Emotional Creature; Karen O’s Stop the Virgens!. Regional—Many theaters including: Asolo, Canadian Stage Company; Cincinnati Playhouse, Capital Rep, Ford’s Theatre, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival; Kansas City Rep, Milwaukee Rep, Berkeley Rep, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Company, Old Globe Theatre, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville. Film/TV—Another Dance With Death; Poor Behavior; Stag; Alice Jacobs is Dead, Roberta, Feast of the Goat; Sidewalk Stories. TV—Lazytown. Member—Casting Society of America and League of Professional Theatre Women.

*Member of Actors’ Equity Association

In the Press

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Reviews

“"The legacies of August Wilson and Tennessee Williams meet the bright future of American playwriting… A play and a production brimming with emotional and thematic riches."”— WYPR

“"Visually stunning and emotionally stirring piece of theater."”— DC Metro Theater Arts

“"Vivid poetry…punchy, streetwise dialogue. There is meaty stuff in all of this."”— The Baltimore Sun

In the News

10.21.13: WYPR — dance of the holy ghosts: a play on memory
10.21.13: The Baltimore Sun — Center Stage presents Marcus Gardley's 'dance of the holy ghosts'
10.21.13: MD Theatre Guide — ‘Dance of the Holy Ghosts: A Play on Memory’ at Center Stage
10.17.13: DC Metro Theater Arts — ‘dance of the holy ghosts: a play on memory’ at CENTERSTAGE

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